Hypercompendia

Realized as I was working on this that Keynote can be a hypertext piece in that a click on a box (if that’s how progression is made) brings in a new box that continues the story.  Here’s an uncut view of the work in Lightbox mode:

Obviously it’s too long a slideshow for the time allotted, so more work is being done to either delete or “skip” by slides, but the point is clear that for now, it’s a strictly linear line of “story.”  This can change if I wanted to jump around within the framework by marking certain slides to go elsewhere from the trail.  I can–and have–some real hyperlinks in there as well. Those noted are all in the credits slide, but it would have been possible to jump out from the slideshow itself onto the web at any point.

Now to the hard work of editing.

I forgot all about transitions! Here I am, putting together a slideshow on transitions of writing and writers and hypertext story and all that good stuff, and I forgot to even think about transitions between slides!  And Keynote has a load of good ‘uns.

This won’t be a timed slideshow–though an audience might prefer it that way and I will check out that possibility–but even in manual progression you can transition via some neat effects.

Needless to say, between 50 slides I have just about every transition available used but it’s just the awe syndrome at work here.  I’ll get down to a reasonable three or four effects at most, likely following the same systematic approach I’m trying to use for organization. 

But for now, it’s enough to blow your mind!  (and eyes!)

Kind of interesting, but funny too, as I prepare a topic and realize that in the research and initial outlay of information I am wandering off into other areas. 

It’s so, so hypertext, ya know?

In trying to focus a visual paper (Keynote) on the single topic of changes that both writer and writing undergo in the transition to hypertext form, I’ve gotten down to fifty pages of posts from this weblog that made me smile or appeared relevant.  From those fifty pages I’ve copied into ten pages certain phrases and sometimes whole posts to melt down into clarification when the fat rises to the top and can be skimmed off.

From there, I’ve copied certain of the best (either because they make good points or because I can’t get over my own eloquence sometimes) and have granted them a slide in the show.  Mostly these are taken in time sequence, but I’m trying to keep them in the flow of certain issues I want to cover in the presentation. 

Likely will finish up the rough first draft of the Keynote slide show today or tomorrow, putting everything in place and then figuring what can be removed or compressed.  I think that the idea of a slideshow, for me, is an accompaniment to a talk, and whether I read off the slide and add a bit to it, or use it just as an outline, it needs to be organized and timed. 

Also, it needs to be self-contained.  If I faint dead away then someone will be able to click through it and frankly, the audience would probably prefer it that way.

I’m up to about 27 slides in Keynote so far, mostly images of Storyspace maps, some text boxes, a couple Hyptertextopia slides, and a lot of either quotes from Hypercompendia postings on working with hypertext or some targeted slides with the whole bulleted thing; these latter two are really to mark my place in speaking and jog my memory as to what I am speaking about.

There are a lot of slides to add in yet–but there are many that can be taken out.  I started with the visuals because they show the work in progress and yes, because they’re pretty. If I’m a complete failure as a speaker (that’s why I’m a writer, duh!) then at least there’ll be something nice to look at  on the screen. As a last resort, I’ll do my Buster Brown ad.  Poll Parrot too, if there’s time.  And even Robert Hall for Tunxis’ sake.

Actually I’m very excited about this–scared out of my wits, but excited.  There are some pretty solid hot shots in the hypertext field to stand alongside here, as well as another concurrently running workshop with which to share the available audience.

Please, come early to the Pittsburgh conference and come to our workshop; it’ll be exciting and fun!

What’s so great about going through six months’ worth of postings on a particular topic is that it is much like getting together with a pal and reliving some great times you’ve spent together.

In reading through on my work with Storyspace and Hypertextopia that produced some of my best writing to-date, I’m enjoying the adventure of it all but validating my opinion that the hypertext format is something that–like the structure of poetry–has had a distinct influence on my writing style.

In returning to linear narrative for a creative writing course, I find that phrases come more easily, stories invent themselves, characters do whatever the hell they want to do and I can’t stop them because…because the paths of hypertext allowed them their reasoning behind their motives.  The visual text box imposes a limit of sorts on how much should be told.  Yes, those boxes stretch to any length and width, but the environment seeks some form of organization and even the simple matter of keeping the boxes similar in size makes a point.  For example, a well-filled writing space usually indicates an action or vital informational segment of story.  A few sentences–or just a single one–makes not only a dramatic point that lets the sentence stand out by itself, the visual of it floating alone like an old bullfrog on a lily pad gives it its deep bellowing impact.

We often don’t know how we progress as writers; it is a gradual thing that someone else may comment upon that makes us look back and discover the footprints in the trail.  Well, as I look back, I see some mother tracks in the dirt just behind me.

I guess there’s no reason to keep it a secret–I’ll be presenting at a workshop on June 19th in Pittsburgh, PA at the Hypertext 08 conference.  That’s what all this “presentation” talk is about.  That’s my opening slide above.

What I’m doing now to get started is putting together an outline that I should be able to easily follow to show the path of a writer’s first exploration of hypertext as a creative writing medium.  I’m filtering through the posts here since they are sort of a blow-by-blow daily report of the journey.

I’m learning Mac Keynote as the slide program–since if there’s something else for an audience to look at besides me, I won’t be as nervous.  It will also keep me on course since I tend to ramble off in other directions–the typical hypertext mind, now given status raised from scatterbrained to the methodical mapping of the hypertext way of thinking.

I’m loving working with Keynote, and I’m loving the creative side of presenting a presentation.  What I am also finding is that the images I’m using of my work in Storyspace show colorful maps that fairly light up the slide screen since part of my strategy in narrative structure was to separate the perspectives/characters/outcomes by color coding.  That way–though I didn’t–I could have set the text boxes up in patterns following the linking of the threads and not lose track of the individual threads themselves.

So in and among the typical bulleted text slides that are more for my own notes than for audience reading, there will be some lovely full color shots of hypertext maps and spaces.  I’m psyched!

For a long time I’ve felt that hypertext mimics the natural thinking process of the brain.  Here’s an example, hot from just a couple minutes of break time outside in the back yard:

Layers of puffy white clouds, traveling at different speeds across the bold blue sky.

–> Start humming Judy Collins’ "I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now, from up and down, and still somehow…"

–>Airplanes bring you above clouds, allowing you to look down; life keeps you down and looking  up

–>New tune: "Well I’m leaving, on a jet plane, don’t know when I’ll be back again…"

–>Image recall:  Miami, Florida coastline out the window

–>Intrusion:  I’m afraid of heights, can’t get above my own height on a ladder.  Why no fear of flying? (Except, of course, for how planes are put together these days.)

–>Possible answer:  Because if I fall in a plane, it’s just to the floor.  Or, if the plane falls from the sky, I’m not alone.

–>Conclusion:  I only have a fear of falling alone.

There now, see how it works?

A framing customer comes from New Haven and brings me a gift, a book
of poetry.  She’s done this before.  She is a creative writing teacher
at Yale and knows my own passions.

I ramble on about Calvino.  I rant on hypertext.  I make her take the link to A Bottle of Beer
and make her promise to read it.  I hint with no subtlety that
hypertext belongs in her curriculum. I cannot help the fire that seems
to singe most of my audience and yet I see a hopeful spark ignite her
eye. She understands the chain of memory mimicked by the human mind.